


Light on broken Glass

by amerasu1013 (amerasu_1013)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Death, Dissociation, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Breakdown, Mental Instability, Mild Gore, Past Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-02
Updated: 2015-05-02
Packaged: 2018-03-28 17:10:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3862765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amerasu_1013/pseuds/amerasu1013
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The asset sleeps. He does not feel the cold (he does). There is no pain (there is always pain). It is slient (like a grave, his grave?). He sleeps and does not dream.<br/>He does: this is what he dreams.<br/>It’s not cold, it’s warm, sunshine on his hair. It’s not silent: wind and bird song and leaves rustling. There is grass tickling his feet, there are trees promising shadow, there are tiny yellow flowers.<br/>There is no pain. No pain at all.<br/>There is laughter in his ears, a warm hand in his. Gentle blue eyes (his eyes?) smile at him, a familiar mouth (his mouth?) curled up at the corner, a tug at his hand, a laughing voice: “Come on! Let’s go!”<br/>He lets himself be tugged along, follows through the rolling hills. There is no pain.<br/>The asset dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Light on broken Glass

**Author's Note:**

> First a warning: English is not my native tongue and this is un-betaed. Sorry for all mistakes, please feel free to point them out, con-crit is always welcome!  
> And then: I don't even have a clue where this came from and what, exactly, this is. Uh. I may have strong feels regarding Bucky and the Winter Soldier and apparently got to thinking about the two of them as kind of separate characters and then this happened. The "dissociation" tag should give you a clue... I'm in no way an expert with this kind of mental disorder. Just roll with it?  
> And also: I really had no idea how to tag this, so please point out if I should include something.  
> Oh, and last but not least: Not mine, I don't own any of the characters. Just playing with them for my own fun and amusement.

 

 

**Some time, somewhere.**

The asset sleeps. He does not feel the cold (he does). There is no pain (there is always pain). It is slient (like a grave, his grave?). He sleeps and does not dream.

He does: this is what he dreams.

It’s not cold, it’s warm, sunshine on his hair. It’s not silent: wind and bird song and leaves rustling. There is grass tickling his feet, there are trees promising shadow, there are tiny yellow flowers. There is a rolling landscape, green hill after green hill, familiar and yet not, like a dream he had before, like a vision of a place he might have thought about visiting.

There is no pain. No pain at all.

There is laughter in his ears, a warm hand in his. Gentle blue eyes (his eyes?) smile at him, a familiar mouth (his mouth?) curled up at the corner, a tug at his hand, a laughing voice:

“Come on! Let’s go!”

He lets himself be tugged along, follows through the rolling hills. There is no pain.

The asset dreams.

When they wake him, for a moment he thinks he can remember the grass under his feet and the warm laughter in familiar eyes. The moment is gone as quickly as it came.

 

***

 

**2003, Queenstown.**

New Year’s Eve. The fireworks mask the first shot and the second. The target falls backwards, a red arc spraying out from his throat, glittering in the lights, like the fireworks do. The target seems to fall in slow motion, has not hit the ground yet when the female, the wife, jerks like a puppet after a bullet slams through her chest. From where he is standing, hidden in the dark, it seems like the bodies hit the ground at exactly the same time. The blood splatters the ground an eternity later.

Mission successful. He turns around to leave.

A rustle in the bushes, 13 feet behind him, 5 feet to the left. He raises his gun.

A child, a boy, hiding in the bushes, staring up at him with wide eyes, mouth twisted open. Breath wheezing from his lips, wetness on his cheeks.

The asset hesitates.

The boy’s chest is heaving, he is raising his hand, clamped tightly around a white something – not a weapon.

An inhaler. The asset does not fire.

Asthma.

The asset frowns. Something tickles in the back of his mind.

The other shifts next to him, takes a step forward. The asset does not look at him directly, if he does the other will probably disappear like smoke in the wind (an illusion), but notices the motion in the corner of his eye. The other extends his flesh hand towards the child, says a name that echoes strangely through the asset’s mind but finds no resonance.

He does not know anyone called Steve (doesn’t he?).

Pain shoots through his head now, suddenly. Familiar pain (conditioning). Mission objective: leave no witnesses.

The asset fires. The boy slumps, his inhaler rolling from lifeless fingers. The fireworks mask the shot.

He turns around to leave.

The other follows (always). He is crying now, softly, but it sounds loud in the asset’s ears. The asset cannot cry. He feels no remorse. Maybe that is why the other is there.

Mission successful.

He reports to his handlers: Target eliminated. No witnesses left. They put him in the chair. There is pain. Then there is silence and emptiness in his head.

The asset does not remember the mission. He remembers tears on a face that looks like his own.

 

***

 

**1951, Oxford.**

Mission target: MI-6 safehouse. Mission objective: Neutralize deserted operative and any MI-6 agent in the vicinity. Destroy evidence, shut down MI-6 investigation into his handler’s organization. Secondary objective: Make it messy, send a message.

Mission accomplished.

There are bodies everywhere, dull eyes staring at him, faces twisted in agony. Blood cakes his arms, the left one bright red instead of bright silver, it drips down his chin and from his fingertips, little _splat_ sounds on the carpet. Secondary objective completed.

The asset shivers. Make it messy, they said, so he obeyed. Cannot _not_ obey, can’t stop himself, can’t… he shivers. Mission accomplished, he thinks, return to base. Report, he has to…

Dead eyes are staring at him everywhere he looks.

The shivers get stronger, he trembles, his entire body jerking violently now. The asset (he has a name, doesn’t he? He forgot? He should have a name?) stumbles, knocks his (human) shoulder against the wall, pain flares brightly for a moment. The asset (James?) clutches the wall, the metal fingers of his left hand sinking into the plaster, but for all his strength the metal (not human) arm is not enough to keep him upright. James (the asset? The Soldier?) sinks to the floor, feeling wetness that is not water seep through his pants, tainting his skin. His mouth opens in a silent scream but no sound emerges, he’s forgotten how to scream, it’s trapped inside his chest, it hurts, it hurts, it –

Hands grab his shoulders and pull. He’s yanked forward (no), away from the support of the wall (nonono), from the only thing keeping him from curling up on the floor (no, please, no) and into –

Strong arms clamp around him in a violent embrace, he’s held tight, a chest against his chest, a shield between him and the world. James’ face is pressed against a neck with corded muscles (with a pulse, beating against his cheek, steadily beating, _alive_ ), hands grip him tight as if they never want to let him go. And James sobs, because that’s what he wants, stay here forever, face hidden against the other’s neck, because this way he doesn’t have to _see_ , see what he did, see what he has become, stay hidden like this and never go back.

The other, Bucky, oh God, Bucky holds him tight, so tight. And James grips back equally tight and doesn’t let go and doesn’t go back and stays here.

He doesn’t go back. So they come get him. They make him forget the mission. But he remembers Bucky.

 

***

 

**One year earlier.**

The other is there. He’s solid and there and familiar, like a mirror. But he doesn’t look at James, stays turned away, curled up in a corner when James does what he’s told. Flinches with every shot, with every choked-off scream and doesn’t look at James. James feels hollow inside, splintered, but makes himself ignore it. He’s been trained to endure pain.

 

***

 

**At the beginning.**

Bucky (Bucky, James Buchanan Barnes) is thrown into a cell, a dark windowless room, smelling of damp and mold and blood. He hits the ground hard and instinctively throws out his left arm to catch himself. The impact jars his healing shoulder, but his arm (oh God, his _arm_ ) is strong enough to keep him from face-planting into the dirt floor.

He half-lies there, panting, tremors running through his body, nausea rolling in waves through his stomach. Steve, he thinks, Steve. Come and save me. Please. There’s no answer, no sound, of course there’s not. He’s alone, he’s lost. He’s…

_He's not alone._

A shadow moves in the corner, a shape hidden from sight. Bucky scrambles backwards, hits the wall, jarring his shoulder again. He’s breathing faster now, hyperventilating, because if there’s one thing he’s learned by now is that here, in this place, the shadows do not hide good things, there are predators there, sharks in the water, there is death wrapped in inky blackness…

The shadowy figure steps forward, into the light. And Bucky screams.

 

***

  

**At the beginning.**

The other, the soldier, James Buchanan Barnes, is screaming.

“No! You can’t be – it’s not true! No, no, this is not happening, NonononoNO!”

James Buchanan Barnes is screaming and tearing at his hair, eyes bulging. Screams “No” as if he never wants to stop.

The nameless man looks at him. Watches him tear at his hair, the metal fingers of his hand ripping out strand after strand. The nameless man frowns.

James Buchanan Barnes’ right arm is metal. The nameless man’s left arm is metal. It’s…

(a mirror)

The nameless man frowns. The other screams. And then he is silent.

  

***

  

**At the beginning.**

At the beginning, Bucky breaks.

  

***

  

**At the end.**

The Captain, Captain America, the mission (Steve?) is staring at the Winter Soldier, eyes wide and hopeful. His right arm is extended towards the Soldier, fingers spread, beckoning.

The Captain is not wearing any weapon. But he is still dangerous.

“Come on, Bucky, please? Let me help you, please, buddy, let me…”

The Winter Soldier’s face stays impassive, his hands do not shake where they hold his guns. But inside, he’s trembling.

Steve?

The Winter Soldier rolls his eyes to his left, keeping note of the Captain while he does. The other is there, at his side, as he always is. The Winter Soldier looks directly at him and the other doesn’t fade, stays there solid and there and comforting.

The other looks back at him, familiar eyes warm and friendly.

“It’s okay,” the other says, “it’s okay. It’s Steve.”

The Winter Soldier shifts on his feet. The other reaches out slowly, gently takes hold of his left arm and carefully pulls it downward, until the gun in his metal fingers is no longer pointing directly at (Steve, Stevie) the Captain. The other holds his arm, like he did on the ship, when the Soldier almost killed-

Steve doesn’t see the other, no one ever does, but he sees that the Soldier lowers his right arm as well, guns pointing to the floor. He takes a hopeful step forward and the Soldier flinches.

“Shh,” the other says, “it’s okay. You can trust him. You can trust me.”

A warm hand grasps his, a gentle tug draws him forward, towards Steve.

“Come on,” the other says, “let’s go.”

And the Winter Soldier follows.

 

***

  

At the end, the Winter Soldier is remade.

At the end, Bucky is no longer broken.

 

**THE END**

**Author's Note:**

> PS: The title was inspired by this quote:  
> “Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” - Anton Chekhov


End file.
